Friday 7 August 2009 19.05 EDT
First published on Friday 7 August 2009 19.05 EDT

Walsall FC begins the new season in the rather cramped, if comparatively salubrious, surroundings of the Withdean Stadium in Brighton this afternoon. "One of our local reporters will text me at regular intervals to let me know what's happening," says Walsall's chief scout David Hamilton. "Believe me, I'll be kicking every ball." But, as you may have gathered, he won't be there in person. Instead, he'll be watching Rotherham United play Accrington Stanley. How come? "We've got Stanley in the League Cup on [the following] Tuesday."

Enough said. Part of Hamilton's job is to run the rule over forthcoming opposition and produce a detailed report for the manager – in this case Chris Hutchings, with whom he worked at Wigan Athletic and Derby County. "He'll want it on his desk first thing Monday morning," the scout assures me. So that's four hours of his Sunday taken care of.

These reports are very detailed indeed if the example he's just tossed across the table to me is anything to go by. It runs to 18 pages in neat, squat handwriting, with diagrams.

Admittedly it was compiled for Derby's former manager Paul Jewell during the club's brief dalliance in the Premier League, and the subject was Tottenham Hotspur, whom Hamilton watched on three occasions. Having glanced through it, there's not much I don't know about Steed Malbranque's technique, Aaron Lennon's outswinging corners and Jonathan Woodgate's runs from deep positions. Derby still managed to lose to Spurs 4-0 away and 3-0 at home, but the scout could hardly be blamed for that. Jewell and his players could never complain that they weren't well briefed.

"Some managers can't be bothered with this kind of thing," Hamilton, 48, admits. "Cloughie [Brian Clough] took the view that his teams were better than anyone else's and he didn't bother much about the opposition." And his son, Nigel, who took over from Jewell at Derby? "He takes a similar line to his dad's, only he's less brash about it," says one of the few men to have experience of Clough senior and junior.

"Young man," Brian would have called Hamilton in 1978 when, as an 18-year-old Sunderland midfielder, he captained the England youth team with Clough and his alter-ego Peter Taylor in charge. The managerial genii were taking a break from working miracles at Nottingham Forest and had the youngsters for one tournament.

"Cloughie put the fear of God into some of the lads," Hamilton recalls in his lilting Geordie accent. "But I liked him and he seemed to like me. Anyway, he got us to the final against Russia," he adds with some pride.

His experience of Clough the younger, lasted from January until the end of last season when the new Derby manager made it plain that he wanted to bring in his own coaching and scouting staff. "That's the way it works in football," shrugs Hamilton. "You surround yourself with people you feel comfortable with." That obviously applies to Hutchings as he adjusts to managing a club in League One, the third tier of English football, after twice stepping up as caretaker-manager for Jewell in the top flight.

What he needs at this level is someone with the experience to spot talent on the fringes of Premier League or Championship squads who can be persuaded to come to Walsall on a short-term loan to secure regular first-team football.

Enter Hamilton, carrying a suitcase. He cheerfully endures a peripatetic life for the love of a game that still surges through his veins like oxygen in the blood. During the season, he spends an inordinate amount of time on motorways, travelling to five games a week, including reserve matches where untapped talent often languishes.

At Wigan he had a staff of 12. Here he has someone to scour the junior leagues and someone else checking top-flight clubs in the London area, while Hutchings covers the Midlands.

That leaves the chief scout with the major burden of the north-west where there are now eight Premier League clubs.

The family home is in Blackburn. "I signed for Rovers in 1981 when they were in the old Division Two," he reminds me. He's had many clubs since, as a player, coach and scout. But Rita, his wife of 25 years, remains at home in Lancashire with their two sons.

Most weekdays, Hamilton stays at Hutchings's new home, not far from where we're sitting overlooking Walsall's training ground on the leafier edge of Wolverhampton. I've driven past the club's Banks's Stadium on the way here. It's named after a local brewery and the stand that you can see from the M6 is called Floors-2-Go. This rather depressing dependency on commercial sponsorship is a reminder of the financial realities of professional football at this level – not to pay exorbitant wage bills but just to survive.

Hamilton almost seems to relish his new, more straitened, circumstances as a challenge to his ability to spot "a good 'un". After all, he's been here before. Wigan were in League One when Jewell called on his services.

"I took one look at the squad and said, 'Paul, these players should be in the Championship'." He pauses for a moment before adding: "The first season I was there, we were promoted with 100 points." It was around this time that he spotted a bargain buy while compiling one of his dossiers on Peterborough United. The scout takes up the story: "He had good energy, got around the park, occasionally tried to thread a ball through the eye of a needle and, if it didn't come off, he'd be the first to win it back."

After Hamilton had made a few discreet phone calls to trusted contacts, Jewell eventually signed Jimmy Bullard for £250,000 on his scout's recommendation. "He helped to get us up to the Premier League and gave us another season there," he points out, "before we sold him to Fulham for £3m. He's since gone to Hull for £5m."

Football man to his bones

These figures pale into insignificance compared with what Manchester United recently paid Wigan for the services of another of Hamilton's former players, Antonio Valencia. Jewell saw him first, while doing some TV punditry during the 2006 World Cup in Germany. "Paul called me and said he'd just seen this player from Ecuador," Hamilton explains. "Could I come out to have a look at him? We finally got him from [Spanish club] Villarreal on a £1m loan fee. And now United has, apparently, paid between £15 and £20m. The first I knew about it was when a reporter phoned me from the Manchester Evening News and asked if he could hack it." And what was the answer? "I've no doubt he can, but I hope nobody thinks he's going to be a straight replacement for Ronaldo," he says as the Walsall players begin arriving for morning training.

The banter that ensues is meat and drink to Hamilton. He is, after all, a football man to his bones – one of three out of four brothers who made it as a professional. As the son of a pot-leek grower from South Shields, Tyne and Wear, he's still down-to-earth enough to feel uneasy about the wages being paid to Premier League stars "at a time when the average punter in the stands is struggling to pay his mortgage".

On the other hand, he's shrewd enough to realise that the big names arriving at a club like newly-wealthy Manchester City will displace players more than capable of doing a good job for Walsall on short loan deals. "We've already made a few enquiries," he confirms, "because they'll want to get regular first-team football somewhere."

In the coming months, he'll be spending many an hour at the City of Manchester Stadium. But first there's this afternoon's game at Rotherham, all the while waiting for news of a Walsall goal at Brighton. "We live and die by results," he says.

And if this one goes his way, writing Sunday morning's dossier on Accrington Stanley will seem like a breeze.

Curriculum vitae

Pay "A chief scout at one of the top four Premier League clubs could be on 100 grand a year." And at Walsall? "A lot less than that!"

Hours Around 80 a week during the season, but that involves extensive travel time.

Work-lifebalance Heavily weighted towards work. "I had to give up my share of an allotment because I didn't have time to do my bit."

Best thing "Nothing beats playing, but I still get a buzz when the new season starts. You come in feeling like a million dollars on Monday morning, if you've won on the Saturday."

Worst thing The insecurity and the travelling.

Overtime

On Saturdays outside the season, David likes to potter around his garden or watch some cricket. David eats lunch at the training ground and enjoys the same healthy food as the players – 'plenty of pasta, fish, chicken and fruit, no more KFCs or McDonald's on the road'. David's wife Rita has worked for Marks & Spencer for 28 years, during which time he has had at least 10 different employers. The Hamiltons celebrated their silver wedding anniversary with a cruise – 'and I hardly talked about football for weeks'.